The Angry Video Game Nerd
The Angry Video Game Nerd (abbreviated AVGN or The Nerd, formerly known as The Angry Nintendo Nerd) is the main character and protagonist and title of a web television series of farcical retrogaming video reviews created by and starring James Rolfe. The show generally revolves around retro game reviews that involve bitter rants against games he deems to be of particularly low-quality or poor design. Such games are often associated with movie tie-ins developed by LJN. The series began as a feature on YouTube, and later joined ScrewAttack Entertainment, which would later have three of its features, including the AVGN, transferred to GameTrailers exclusively. The show, formerly known as The Angry Nintendo Nerd, was renamed because the show started reviewing games on other consoles, and also to prevent any trademark issues with Nintendo. The Nerd is a short-tempered and foul-mouthed video game fanatic. He derives comic appeal from excessive and inventive use of profanity, frequent displays of explicit gestures, and a habitual consumption of beer (mostly Rolling Rock, but sometimes Yuengling). A particular characteristic, which has become something of a trademark of his character, is for him to describe, in great detail, extremely repulsive and painful, usually firmly scatological acts, and to claim that he would rather endure them than to play the game that he is reviewing. Varying amounts of physical comedy are mixed into the verbal abuses. History Rolfe first started to do films as a child in the late 1980s to the early 1990s, but his career did not take off until he made a short review of the NES game Castlevania II: Simon's Quest in 2004 under the title "Bad NES Games". Rolfe decided to make another video which was supposed to be the last, because Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was his most hated game. His beer drinking in most of his videos was done on purpose, as to say "these games are so bad I'm forced to drink" in a joking manner. The choice of Rolling Rock was coincidental as it happened to be the one beer in Rolfe's refrigerator at the time the video was made, and it eventually became an identifying trait of the character – although in more recent videos Rolfe has varied his alcohol consumption with Rolling Rock beer, hard liquor, and non-alcoholic hot sauce. The videos were produced and published on Cinemassacre.com and the only release outside of the website came as "The Quickies" tape, part of a four VHS tape set called the "Cinemassacre Gold Collection" that Rolfe put together himself with what he considered to be his best films. On April 6, 2006, his friend Mike Matei made him a YouTube channel under the name of "JamesNintendoNerd", where the first four episodes were uploaded and became popular. On September 12, 2006 Rolfe's character first gained mainstream attention when his review of the Nintendo game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles went viral on the YouTube website. This was reported in an MTV news segment called "Viral Videos Infect the Mainstream". Later, on November 2, 2008 his videos were featured on the nationally syndicated radio show Opie and Anthony. Opie & Anthony found his obscenity-laced tirades against poorly made video games quite humorous, and took notice of one of their own Whip 'em Out Wednesdays (WOW) promotional stickers being featured quite prominently in several of Rolfe's videos. Since then, additional videos have been played occasionally on the show. Rolfe was later interviewed by Opie and Anthony on January 9, 2008. Rolfe would go on to host a show on Opie and Anthony's XM Satellite Radio (now Sirius/XM) channel for their "Saturday Night Virus" block of shows, but has done only one show so far and has not returned since. On April 1, 2012 James began filming Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie and left the site and the Youtube channel to Mike Matei, making his own videos which are mostly movie and game reviews. James returned to Cinemassacre with a new AVGN episode on summer 2012. A trailer for the movie was released in November 9, 2012 in the Colonial Theater in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, in which Rolfe announced that he and his wife were expecting their first child. Rolfe continues to make AVGN episodes, and other videos on his website Cinemassacre. ''Angry Video Game Nerd'' He later changed the name from "The Angry Nintendo Nerd" to "The Angry Video Game Nerd" to prevent trademark issues. Along with the name change, the Nerd soon diversified, reviewing games on other platforms such as the Atari 2600, Super Nintendo, Sega Master System and Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. Along with reviewing games, some episodes have featured other video game-related subjects, such as the Power Glove, the U-Force, The Wizard and a tribute to Nintendo Power. Rolfe stated almost every episode has a reference from the documentary American Movie. Rolfe has stated on his website that the first videos he made were "just a joke" and he had no intention of making them public, instead showing them only to friends. After two years passed, Mike Matei suggested he put the reviews online. They soon did, and since then, his reviews have become increasingly popular and have developed a large fanbase. Rolfe's videos grew longer, soon turning into an actual series complete with title cards, an intro song and official merchandise and the AVGN Volume 1 DVD (2004 and 2006 episodes), followed by the Volume 2 DVD (2007 episodes), the Volume 3 DVD (2008 episodes), and the Volume 4 DVD (2009 episodes). After his fourth online review on YouTube, ScrewAttack invited him to have his own section on their website and has since been employed by MTV Networks' GameTrailers.com. Beginning July 23, 2012, with the 107th episode entitled "Schwarzenegger Games", the series returned to YouTube. As of December 22, 2011, Rolfe is currently focusing most of his efforts on producing the Angry Video Game Nerd Movie. Due to this he will only be releasing episodes when he is able to finish one in between working on the feature film. Show Episodes Special guests Occasionally, "special guests" based on famous film and television characters make appearances. These guests often provide additional commentary on the games and mock the Nerd's anguish. Most of the characters are played by Mike Matei, who also co-writes many of the episode scripts and illustrates the show's title cards. His roles have included characters such as Freddy Krueger and Bugs Bunny, among many others. Freddy Krueger was also played by James Rolfe, with Matei taking on the role when both the Nerd and Freddy were in view. The show's musician, Kyle Justin, played both Spider-Man and Cousin Itt in separate episodes, which were accompanied by him performing the theme songs from Spider-Man and The Addams Family, with reworked lyrics. Justin was also featured in the Battletoads and second Bugs Bunny (Crazy Castle) episodes as himself. Kevin Finn played a ninja master inspired by Ryu Hayabusa in his Ninja Gaiden review as well as the "Game Graphic Glitch Gremlin" in the "Game Glitches" episode and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link episode. Some episodes have a basic storyline inspired by the plot of the game or the movie the game is based on being reviewed (e.g. in the Halloween review, the Nerd is stalked by Michael Myers while he goes babysitting). In these cases, guests are used to play the episode-specific characters. The Nostalgia Critic appeared in the Nerd's house and together they had a violent duel, in which the critic is nearly killed by the "Super Mecha Death Christ" character. In the Nerd's take on A Christmas Carol, Stuttering Craig and Handsome Tom, co-founders of ScrewAttack, appear as the Ghost of Christmas Past and the Ghost of Christmas Present, respectively. A Dracula sprite from Castlevania II: Simon's Quest represents the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Music The Angry Video Game Nerd theme song was composed by independent New Jersey musician Kyle Justin. Justin left the program in 2009 to raise his child and has ceased music-related activity while still remaining close friends to Rolfe. The lyrics were the work of both Justin and Rolfe. Some of the lyrics come from comments made by Rolfe in his review of Back to the Future. Justin appeared with Rolfe at a MAGFest 2010 panel and performing the theme song live. For numerous episodes, musical scores and covers were performed by Chris Holland that were subsequently used in episodes which includes the Batman episode, the Christmas Carroll episode, and many others. Animated characters The show also makes use of original animated characters to add commentary or advance an episode-specific plot. The review of Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu uses a character called "Shit Pickle" to comment on the game play (which simply consisted of him repeating the words "shit" and "pickle" sometimes, but not always together). Shit Pickle did not appear again until Rolfe placed him in his own animated shorts and part of a comparison joke to certain enemy sprites in his Action 52 review. In the Wizard/''Super Mario Bros. 3'' review, the Nerd calls upon "Super Mecha Death Christ 2000 B.C Version 4.0 Beta" to assist in the destruction of a demonically possessed Super Mario Bros. 3 cartridge. This character is a combination of Jesus, robotic components, assorted weapons, and a tank. Both Shit Pickle and Super Mecha Death Christ originated from Rolfe's early animated film "The Wizard of Oz 3: Dorothy Goes to Hell" and are voiced by James Rolfe and created by Mike Matei. Rolfe explained on his website that Super Mecha Death Christ was created as a spoof on the numerous Mecha-characters found in the Godzilla movies, such as Mechagodzilla. During his review of the Magnavox Odyssey a character called "The Nerdy Turd", a piece of fecal matter with Rolfe's head and face on it, was introduced out of necessity as the Odyssey does not support single player games (although Mike Matei helped Rolfe play with the system during shooting). In the Star Wars games review, the Nerd introduces the "Beer Droid", a beer supplying Droid, which is a vacuum animated through stop motion effects. DVDs On November 18, 2007, the first AVGN DVD set was released. It includes all of the episodes up to the first "Bible Games" episode. Some material, such as movie clips from Back to the Future and Rocky, were removed to avoid copyright infringement and replaced with new material. The DVD includes extended versions of the "Wally Bear and the NO Gang!" and "Rocky" reviews as well as an original documentary, deleted scenes, and most of the videos posted exclusively on ScrewAttack.com. In all, the DVD set contains approximately three hours and 15 minutes of content. According to Rolfe, the initial pressing of the DVD sold out in less than a week. In addition, there were 100 DVDs sold with James Rolfe's autograph on the front cover. Around November 15, 2008, the second AVGN DVD set, which spans three discs, was released. It includes the GameTrailers.com episodes from the Atari 5200 review to An Angry Nerd Christmas Carol as well as a scene from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III review, the trailers posted on YouTube, commentaries, outtakes (from the 2007 videos as well as some from 2008), and other material. On December 12, 2009, the third AVGN DVD set, which spans three discs, was released. It includes the GameTrailers.com episodes from "Chronologically Confused about the Zelda Timeline" to "Bible Games 2"; however, the review for The Wizard and Super Mario Bros. 3 has been reduced to cover only SMB3 to avoid copyright infringement. Three of the episodes have been extended. The DVD set also includes outtakes, a tour of the Nerd's room, and other material. On December 15, 2010, the fourth AVGN DVD set, spanning three discs, was released. It includes the GameTrailers.com episodes from Michael Jackson's Moonwalker to Winter Games as well as bonus features such as a look at Sega 3-D Glasses, outtakes, behind-the-scenes footage, and other material. On December 8, 2011, the fifth AVGN DVD set, complete with three discs and special features, was released. The packaging parodies the cover of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde NES game. On December, 1, 2012 the sixth AVGN dvd set, still 3 discs with special features was released. The packaging parodies the cover of the Contra NES game. All DVD packaging is done by Mike Matei. Film adaptation Awards The Angry Video Game Nerd was voted Best Online Web Series in Mashable's 3rd Annual Open Web Awards on December 16, 2009. Category:The Angry Video Game Nerd Category:Television